Practicing the piano should be a fun, exciting, and enjoyable experience. However, it is useful to take a step back on occasion and examine the habits you develop around piano practice. How often do you do this? This week, we will explore a range of bad habits that you can develop on the piano so …
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Like many pursuits in life, progressing in your piano practice requires consistency and discipline. It can feel easy at the beginning to make huge leaps in your skills. However, after some time you may feel like you start to hit certain plateaus. Feeling like you are hitting plateaus in your practice presents a chance to …
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Join in the fun and celebration of World Music Day this month with Skoove. Music is a wonderful and beautiful force and what better way to celebrate the power of music than with an all-day celebration around the Summer solstice! Learn more about this wonderful day, some of the history behind the idea and event, …
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The whole tone scale is a surreal and enigmatic sound that often feels ambiguous and unanchored. The scale is perfect for creating dream-like passages and is commonly found in the work of Impressionistic composers like Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel. However, examples of the scale date back to the 17th century. The whole tone scale …
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The more you practice piano, the faster you will improve. That is a basic fact of piano playing that we all must deal with. However, we do not always have access to the piano, even when we want to practice. Fortunately, it is possible to practice music away from the piano! This week we will …
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The diminished scale, or octatonic scale, is an enigmatic and distinct scale that offers a great deal of melodic and harmonic depth and possibility. There are examples of the diminished scale in European classical music dating back to the time of Bach and also in various folk music traditions from the Middle East. However, the …
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Jazz piano chords are some of the most complex sounds that a piano can make. Knowing some common jazz chord shapes, minor seventh chords and dominant chords can really add a lot of shape to your playing. Learning how to make jazz chords is not as difficult or complex as it might seem, and with …
A beginner’s guide to jazz chords for piano Read More »
The melodic minor scale is a variation on the natural minor scale that emerged primarily because of its melodic functionality, as opposed to its cousin, the harmonic minor scale, which developed based on its harmonic functions. In European classical music, the scale follows one interval pattern ascending and a different interval pattern descending. However, in …
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Musicians are often practicing groups of notes played one at a time in order, on their instruments. This is a very common way to develop speed and skill, hand independence and practice playing at slow or fast tempos. These notes musicians are often practicing are called Scales, which are actually called diatonic and chromatic scales. …
Understanding all seven diatonic scales Read More »
Reading two clefs simultaneously is one of the most unique musical challenges available and the piano is virtually the only instrument that requires us to do so. When you get in the zone of reading two clefs at the same time, you enter a true flow state. It is quite amazing and well worth pursuing. …
Learning to read two clefs at once! Read More »
Learning piano scales, and getting the most out of your practice, is all about your attitude. To the beginner, practicing scales might seem like a tedious and boring task. However, if you shift your perspective and view the practice of scales as an important tool in your repertoire of ways to become a better pianist, …
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Jazz is one of the most interesting, unique, and controversial musical inventions in recent memory. Much like rock and roll, funk, electronic, and hip-hop, jazz is part of the Black American music canon and is full of virtuoso musicians, iconoclastic characters, and a melodic, harmonic, and rhythmic language and history all of its own. In …
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